Environmental cleanup ahead of schedule

  • Published
  • By Holly Birchfield
  • 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. (AFPN) --  The Air Force has given its air logistics centers until the year 2014 to clean up sites contaminated from past industrial operations. And, Robins Air Force Base is ahead of schedule with 13 systems now in place to clean up remaining sites. To date, more than half of the total 79 environmental sites here have been cleaned up.

Charline Logue said Robins officials are taking a proactive approach to protecting the environment by cleaning up environmental sites nine years ahead of Air Force goals. She is an environmental scientist and the project manager for the 78th Civil Engineer Squadron's environmental management division's restoration cleanup program.

"During the early years of aircraft repair, disposal of chemicals caused contamination at sites at Robins," she said. "The focus of the cleanup division is to clean up environmental sites that were formerly used for landfills, fire protection training and waste disposal in support of the base's mission."

To complete their environmental cleanup ahead of schedule, base environmental division employees and several area environmental consultants worked together to develop systems to address the base’s efforts.

Each site was initially evaluated based on the type and amount of contamination to determine what systems would work best to clean up the affected areas.

The multimillion-dollar program will free up valuable natural resources for the base, said Fred Otto, environmental restoration cleanup program manager here.

"This allows us to reuse the land for something else," he said. "A lot of these places are areas that have use restrictions. By cleaning it up, the land can be used for some other mission-related activity."

Robins has received high praise for its cleanup efforts, Mr. Otto said, with the deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health, calling Robins' cleanup program "one of the best in the Air Force."

"I am extremely proud of our cleanup program and the success it has achieved," said Steve Coyle, 78th CEG's environmental management division chief. "I am especially pleased to be reaching the last 'remedy in place' status at Robins."

Officials here began the investigative process of these sites in 1989. The first systems were put in place in 1995. (Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)